Read: In the Garden of Beasts

They all knew and they let it happen. Who is “They?” Everyone from Roosevelt and his cabinet to the other world leaders of the time. Same for universities, the business sector, and even down to the ambassadors, and their families, working inside Germany, which is what leads us to Erik Larson’s “In the Garden Of Beasts:Love,Terror and an American Family in Hitler’s Berlin” Larson is a stud. I’ve read everything I can get my hands on and am never disappointed. The situation described in this book is one of the most well documented events in human history, but as the modern world leans more and more into revisionist history, it’s important to not forget where we came from.

The Reich Rule number one. Jews are the root cause of all evil. Sound familiar? Not just during Nazi Germany. How about Charlottesville 2016. “The Jews will not replace us,” screamed by cowardly little worms holding tiki torches. How about two days ago in Michigan 2024, masked men holding swastika flags parading around their town yelling hate speech. These infants are often jobless, hopeless, and more than anything else attempting to find any group that will accept them, but the default anger always goes back to the Jews.

When the Nazis of 1933 Germany began their evil work the Jews were the primary target. Thrust in the middle was United States Ambassador William Dodd and his family. Dodd was not the first choice. Far from it, actually, but he accepted the position and moved into the belly of the beast. What struck me about this story was the gradual assault on logic, reason, truth, justice, and human decency. Although the evidence was right in front of everyone, there was a slow acceptance of awful. It can’t get any worse, can it?. Oh, it’s gotten worse? Okay, let’s not do anything rash, but perhaps we need to reanalyze but God forbid take any action. That might upset someone.

There was a gradual acceptance of the inhuman because the atrocities kept getting worse. The normalization of the unspeakable. There are people in camps? Okay. Now they are being stripped of their businesses? Okay. Now they are being stripped of their nationality? Okay. Now the park benches have Jews only signs? Okay. Oh, I think it will get better. Hitler will come around. He promises he isn’t prepping for war. Remember, the anti-semitic fervor was also running high in the US. We had “our own Jewish problem.” There were plenty of folks here who said “Sounds terrible, but we have our own issues.”

Anytime politicians say “Never again,” just know they don’t mean it. Just ask the Cambodians or Kurds, or dozens of other countries that have experienced mass genocide post WWII, post world leaders proclaiming “Never again.” If reading this book doesn’t severely piss you off, well, you might already be dead. Storm clouds are forming here in the United States. For those of you who only get your news from one source, or perhaps don’t have the time to study US current events, just know the exact rhetoric of 1933 Berlin is being used again today, here, now. Mass deportations, stripping people of their citizenship, and political leaders believed to be appointed by God. Normalizing of racism and hate. Promotion of potential violence. Attacks on the media. This book is a blueprint. Get it, read it, study it, and don’t think it can’t or won’t happen again.